


But Only Three in All God's Universe

by prairiecrow



Series: Knight Rider 2000 AU [4]
Category: Knight Rider (1982), Knight Rider 2000
Genre: Arguing, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Asexuality, Confessions, Homoromantic, M/M, OT3, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-17
Updated: 2012-11-17
Packaged: 2017-11-18 21:25:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/565465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A woman. A machine. A man. A confession. And a proposal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But Only Three in All God's Universe

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after the Knight Rider 2000 chapter in the "Six Revelations" set of stories, here: 
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/562009/chapters/1006265

Shawn McCormick stood over the hospital bed of Brad Adair, KITT's Senior Programming Technician, and watched him rouse from the sleep of death that had nearly claimed him with her heart pressing up into her throat and beating like the wings of a trapped bird. In the back of her mind the RSI chip, pulled from KITT's own hardware nearly three years ago, dispassionately noted that his breathing rate and the pulse in his throat were well within normal ranges for an adult male of his age, build and level of fitness, and took that as an excellent sign. 

Sixteen days. It had been sixteen days since the battle in Virtual Reality that had nearly taken all their lives — hers, his, KITT's — and that had revealed an explosive hidden dynamic in their pattern of relationships. Her RSI chip graced her with eidetic recall and she'd shared KITT's memories since, hearing Brad's hoarse whisper from two different perspectives — KITT's, at his side, and her own while she'd worked furiously to code a shield against the attacks — as he'd lain on the cold broken "ground" of the VR, dying, while new waves of the Shrike virus shrieked towards them out of the necrotic sky. 

 _Why?_ KITT had demanded, bending over him and supporting him with one arm under his shoulders, appalled to see the venomous code tearing through him from the attack that had been directed at him, not the human tech — an attack that Brad had redirected to himself with a supreme force of will. 

And Brad looked up into the pale face of the AI's avatar, and smiled painfully, and spoken the words that he'd thought would be his last: 

 _Listen, KITT… I had to do it…_ KITT had shaken his head once, in fierce denial. _Listen to me! I love you… I always have…_  

The AI had stared at him with blank incomprehension — then with dawning horror and amazement. _You...? No, that's…_  

Brad had nodded as best he could, grimaced as his VR manifestation flickered from the ravages of the code taking it apart, then rallied and reached up to lay a shaking hand to KITT's cheek. _Since the day I met you, Big Guy… I'm sorry… so fucking sorry —_  

 _No!_ But Brad was beyond hearing, his avatar juddering and freezing as his cortical input levels fell below the maintenance threshold. Out in the Real, he had just flatlined. 

And in the VR, KITT had stared at him for three full seconds — an eternity to an AI — before letting the tech's dead avatar fall, turning to face the Shrike attack, and unleashing a surge of such fury and power that Shawn had wondered, for the terrible thirty-two seconds before she was taken down herself, if he'd lost his sanity. 

She'd woken up five days later in a hospital bed with her body and her mind intact, only to learn that Brad's heart had been restarted but that he might never regain consciousness again. For ten days she and KITT had waited, and worried, and talked things over endlessly, until yesterday word had come from Rudy St. Claire, KITT's Senior Mechanic and permanent fixture beside Brad's hospital bed, that the programmer had opened his eyes and was speaking in complete sentences — and that the hospital's neurologists and the Foundation's own Team physician, Dr. Alpert, both agreed that he would make a full recovery. And therefore here she stood now, watching his brown eyes flicker open and squint at the tiled ceiling over his bed without really seeming to see it. 

Certainly he didn't appear to be registering Shawn's presence at all, so after a count of three seconds she spoke in a low gentle voice: "Hey." 

He blinked again, harder. It was a moment of real awakening: she saw awareness surge back into his long face, and with it surprise — and dread. He turned his gaze to her with clear reluctance, managing to tug a slight crooked smile onto his narrow lips. "Hey," he responded in a dry rasp, looking at her searchingly. 

That sharp inquisitiveness even in his clearly weakened condition was so _Brad_ that she smiled more widely, with open warmth. "How're you feeling?" 

"I —" A catch in his throat, and a cough. "Thirsty. Could I have some water?" 

"Sure." She poured some from the bedside table's pitcher into a waiting glass and turned to get one arm under his shoulders, helping him to sit up a little and holding the glass to his lips to let him drink a few swallows. He'd always been slimly built, but now she could clearly feel the jut of his shoulder blades through his thin hospital-issue gown, and in a strange oblique way it broke her heart: KITT would not be pleased to hear of it. When he was finished she eased him back onto the pillows and set the half-full glass aside, stepping back into position facing him to find him regarding her with the air of someone who'd been preparing himself to weather an attack — or perhaps to take his justly earned lumps. 

"Better?" she asked. 

He nodded. "Better. Thanks." Tension gathered across his shoulders and in the vulnerable line of his neck. "How's KITT doing?" 

It was a logical first question, given his revealed preferences. "Fine, now. Did Rudy tell you that he and Russell nearly came to blows after —" 

"After Maddock tried to bludgeon him over the head with… with what I'd said?" Anger and anguish flared in Brad's narrowed eyes, his voice becoming a serpent's hiss. "Yeah, he told me. God, that man is _such_ an asshole! No wonder KITT ran. It was probably either that or crush the bastard against the nearest wall." 

Shawn nodded. She'd only heard about the incident when she'd woken up from her own coma two days afterwards, but in her first subsequent RSI contact with KITT she had clearly felt the AI's fury and confusion, and his lingering shame at being so tempted to cause a human being harm that he'd fled rather than trusted himself not to act on it. "Pretty much. He's in lockdown at the Compound, otherwise he'd be here too. We were both so relieved to hear that you'd finally woken up." 

This time his smile was wide and bitter; he closed his eyes and turned his face toward the window, whose grey light turned his face even more wan. "I don't see why, after what went down in the VR." 

So much pain in his voice… and guilt… her heart flip-flopped in her chest again, and she reached out to lay a comforting right hand on his left forearm. "Brad, you arguably saved KITT's life. If you hadn't taken the brunt of the first Shrike attack —" 

"Yeah, I know. But in a real sense I didn't do it for him." A moment's heavy silence, then his thick eyebrows quirked upward. "I don't suppose I could convince you that I was flat out of my mind when I said those silly things, could I?" 

She shook her head, watching him closely. "You could try. But we wouldn't believe it. And what do you mean, you 'didn't do it for him'? If you really —" 

He cut her off sharply. "I did it because when I saw the incursion heading straight toward him, all I could think was: _It's going to annihilate him, and if he dies, I couldn't bear to go on living._ " A bark of sour laughter. "It was selfishness, pure and simple — and cowardice. Nothing noble about it. So why don't you save your gratitude for someone who really deserves it, eh?" 

Her human aspects suffered to see his pain, so raw and so clear, but it was her AI aspect that generated a reply, calm yet stern: "I fail to see why you're beating yourself up over this, Brad — and I refuse to believe that your motivation in acting as you did was anything other than —" 

"Don't!" It was only a whisper, but so plaintive that it cut to her heart and silenced the voice of reason. "Just… don't." A tear slipped down his left cheek, pale and exhausted, as his voice wavered perilously: "You sound just like him…" 

Humanity overcame her in a burst of compassion, and she took his hand in both of her own, squeezing it firmly enough that he couldn't pull it away if he tried. "You're right. I do. I know how he speaks, and I know how he thinks — and Brad, he doesn't blame you for any of this. In fact, he sent me here to tell you that he's very worried about you and that he's looking forward to talking to you just as soon as —" 

"I'm not going back." 

That stopped her in her tracks for a good two seconds, prompting a blank stare, then a scowl. "What?" 

Determination hardened his features. "Come on, Shawn — Maddock's not going to let me within a hundred miles of the Team again, and you know it." 

"He's said no such thing!" 

"And besides," he continued as if she hadn't spoken, "how are we — the three of us — supposed to go on, now that you know?" She plainly heard the plural in the second person pronoun, along with that inexplicable depth of self-hating guilt. "You and KITT are crazy about each other, and things would just be — well, 'awkward' doesn't even begin to cover it, does it?" 

"I see." She could feel KITT's personality within her surging back to the fore, riding a wave of her own irritation, and she let its angry cadences take control of her diction. "And did it ever occur to you to ask me for _my_ opinion, instead of spending thirteen months and twenty-six days pretending that you felt nothing for me beyond a professional interest and a taste for friendly debate? Well, I'm sorry to inform you that the decision to stay or to go isn't one you can make unilaterally anymore! I'll handle Maddock, never you fear! All you have to do right now is concentrate on —" 

"Did he tell you about our conversation back on August 13th, 2002?" 

She was really starting to wish that he didn't keep derailing the conversation, but given that he'd almost died to save the person she loved — the person they both loved — she was inclined to be lenient. "Who, KITT? He didn't mention it, no." 

"I'm not like other guys, Shawn. I know that sounds like I'm boasting, but trust me, I'm not." The acidic element in the curve of his mouth could have etched cold steel. "I'm a homoromantic asexual. I get my kicks above the waistline, always have, always will… and my whole life long, I thought that there was nobody in the world who was capable of fascinating me enough to call the feeling 'love', and even if they did, they'd probably want something from me I wasn't willing or able to provide." His fingers tightened fractionally on hers, connecting with her even as his self-mocking lilt went on, now laced with the ache of regret: "And then I met KITT, and oh God, I fell — I fell so hard and so fast, you wouldn't believe it. He was utterly perfect and completely unattainable — he had you, always front and centre in his sight — but once I came to terms with that I was all right, more or less. It was enough to share the parts of his existence that I _could_ have — and as long as I never told a soul about how I felt, at least not in a way that could be traced back to him, I thought I was safe." 

"I'm not the one you should be telling this," she whispered, suddenly feeling very small and somewhat awed, a weight spinning on the other side of a fulcrum, accelerated by the momentum of this man's grief and pain. "When you come back to the Foundation —" 

"I told you, I'm not —"  

"Stop interrupting me, damn it!" The human and the AI were acting as one now. "And listen to what I'm saying. We want you back. We _need_ you back. There's a place for you there — with us." 

He let the silence spin out for a beat. "Guess you really don't want to lose a top-notch programmer, eh?" 

"That's not what I meant." She let her own voice take precedence. "We've talked it over, at length, and we agree — this isn't a normal situation, so the usual social mores don't apply. KITT wants you to be with him, and I'm not going to stand in the way of that. We need you to come back, to be his head programmer — and to forge a connection beyond that, if you're willing." 

His head snapped round with an almost audible _crack_ , and for a few seconds Brad did the best goldfish impression she'd ever seen. "He said… _what?_ " 

Shawn nodded. "He assured me that you wouldn't be interested in making use of the sexual behaviour maps he's constructed. That statement makes a lot more sense, now." 

"He…" Understanding was dawning in his wide eyes, along with disbelief. "He wants _me?_ He _said_ that?" 

"Oh believe me, he made it abundantly clear. Of course he's furious at you for keeping him in the dark for so long, but I think if you work hard at it you'll convince him to forgive you." 

The look of open-mouthed bewilderment was being rapidly replaced by a tentative smile, its margins constrained by severe lines of doubt. "Shawn that's… _really?_ And you're — okay with that? With — sharing him, that way?" 

The prospect had hurt at first, but she saw no reason to put that weight onto Brad's currently fragile shoulders, so she met his gaze squarely and affirmed: "I'm not going to deny him the chance to gain new insight into the human condition, and something tells me there are a lot of things you can teach him. Besides, I don't own him: I can't dictate who he finds attractive, or how he chooses to act on that attraction." She squeezed his hand again, and managed a slight smile. "You're expanding the circle, Brad, not cutting off part of it. We'll figure something out. Trust us." 

He looked into her face for a long moment, as if weighing both the merits of her words and their truthfulness, but when the smile widened to light up his whole lean face and shine in his dark eyes she felt all the angles fall into place, an equation with three variables whose final result was as yet unseen — but certainly not unsolvable.  

THE END 

*********************************************************

But only three in all God's universe  
Have heard this word thou hast said,---Himself, beside  
Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied  
One of us . . . that was God, . . . and laid the curse  
So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce  
My sight from seeing thee,---that if I had died,  
The deathweights, placed there, would have signified  
Less absolute exclusion. 'Nay' is worse  
From God than from all others, O my friend!  
Men could not part us with their worldly jars,  
Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend;  
Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars:  
And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,  
We should but vow the faster for the stars.

_Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "But Only Three in All God's Universe…", 1806-1861_  
  
---  
  
 


End file.
